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A couple of significant release dates are reaching us, one that makes us smile, the other making us do a little bit of a frown.

We knew BioWare were surprising everyone with a May release for the PC port of Mass Effect. The even better news, according to Videogamer, is that it’s very near the beginning of the month, May 6th (for N. America, at least – they predict the 9th for us olde worlders).

Looking further ahead, EA announced this morning that Dead Space – the was-it-originally-going-to-be-System-Shock-3 space horror – is to appear in time for Halloween, Oct 31st… On 360 and PS3. As yet there is no date for PC, which leads to concerns that the PC incarnation might end up being a port. Hear me now, EA – if I see a diagram of a 360 controller in Dead Space, I will come ’round your house and fill up your shoes.

EA say (in the press release, not in direct response to my threat):

“Dead Space is being developed as a single-player thriller that delivers the chilling, claustrophobic feeling of being isolated in a dark environment, while being stalked by some truly horrific enemies. Halloween is the perfect time for EA to deliver the fear and anxiety that will keep survival horror fans up playing all night.”

Perfect for consoles, eh? What about us? Another Halloween spent staring through the fogged up windows of our console-playing neighbours then.

Mass Effect was sort of variable on 360. I really enjoyed some aspects of it, such as the idea of exploration (less the reality) and the central city. The combat was pretty frustrating, no matter how you fit out your squad.

I actually wonder how well it will sell on the PC given that pretty much everyone bar the die hard PC hold outs has played it already.

As for Dead Space it does look like it started life as System Shock 3 concept but I don’t think anyone has any idea if it plays like Shock, the survival horror genre like Resident Evil is hugely popular on the consoles but not on the PC. So they probably decided to not just bother porting the game at all to the PC though it wouldn’t be difficult to do given Microsoft’s porting tools for the Xbox 360.

I’m not sure whether to look forward to this or not! Reason being, I really want to believe in Bioware. But Jade Empire just annoyed the hell out of me, plot- and character-wise. I’m hoping that the change in genre comes with an improvement in the writing, but maybe that’s optimistic.

… Seriously. I could go on and on about how Jade Empire made me want to hurl my guts. But that would be bad manners.

Combat in Mass Effect was a bit less frustrating if you put points into the appropriate weapon skills of your comrades, and also gave damage-over-time upgrades to their guns. This makes them substantially less useless. It seems to me they both fired more frequently and accurately with greater skill, and radiation or poison rounds meant even with infrequent shots they’d rack up kills.

I felt a lot of pride the first time I saw Wrex and that scottish-sounding chick annihilate an enemy squad before I could even do anything. Which might be why the standard loadout makes them so useless, just to make sure shooter fans feel important.

Also, you can move your cursor around while ‘paused’ in the power-usage menu. Not having to target these in real-time makes it a lot easier. It’s almost an exploit since you can pause it like so and zero-in on your targets at your leisure, but I think it’s just a hidden accessability feature for those who want to play Bioware as an RPG first, FPS second. You still need to be able to tolerate action games to get through these combat scenes though.

It’s definitely got a lot of hack-and-slash, but I felt it did a good job of making each encounter significant and reasonable, and I don’t recall any outstaying their welcome. (Though I’ve played a lot of shooters in my day)

I don’t remember much about it right now because I’m trying to forget everything about it, just so I can play it again later and it’ll feel fresh. I know in my first 12 hours with it a few key rough patches had me swearing, but eventually I got used to its idosyncrasies and it was wonderful after that. My most worthwhile purchase for all of last year I’d say, even though I could nitpick the hell out of it if I wanted to.

@Joe: So I’m not the only one who was underwhelmed by Jade Empire? Seriously, I’ll never understand what all the hype was about. The graphics were fugly (at least on Xbox), the combat system was kinda nice, but it wasn’t challenging in the least and 90% of all fighting styles were completely obsolete…

I thought Mass Effect was excellent. It had very few issues in my opinion (namely the Mako). The story is by far the reason to play this game. With points in charm/intimidate you can witness some really surprising “oh snap” moments. As far as targeting and the combat I enjoyed it. One point that no one seems to mention is once you beat the game you can use that same character to play through again (with all of your equipment and money intact).